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Upgrade VCSA to VMware vCenter 6

VMware, , , , , ,

So I jumped right in and upgraded my VCSA 5.5 to VCSA 6, you can find the official documentation and upgrade steps here.

Pre-Reqs from VMware

  •  Verify that the clocks of all machines on the vSphere network are synchronized. See Synchronizing Clocks on the vSphere Network.
  • Verify that the ESXi host on which you deploy the vCenter Server Appliance is not in lockdown or maintenance mode.
  • Verify that the vCenter Server SSL certificate for your existing vCenter Server Appliance is configured correctly. See VMware Knowledge Base article 2057223.
  • If you use an external database, back up the vCenter Server Appliance database.
  • Create a snapshot of the vCenter Server Appliance.

What you need before you start

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VMware Software Manager – a quick guide

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Downloading a VMware Suite with the Push of a Button using VMware Software Manager

One of VMware’s announcements today alongside the release of VMware vSphere 6 and additional products to support vSphere 6, was VMware Software Manager.

Here’s the official blurb of the product, which I can’t really rewrite better myself;

VMware Software Manager - Download Service is a tool for managing downloads of VMware suite products. The tool allows you to browse and download software, monitor the progress of downloads, and locate your downloaded software in an organized folder structure.

At the time of release, Download Service makes available only a portion of VMware suite releases. Currently available releases include:

VMware vCloud Suite® 5.8 and 5.5
VMware vSphere® with Operations Management™ 5.5
VMware vSphere® 5.5 and 5.1

Additional suites and suite versions will be released in the future and will dynamically show up in Download Service.

The official release notes can be found here.

Installing the Product

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Setting up LACP on Synology NAS and HP Switches

Networking, Storage, , ,

Here I am going through how to setup LACP port trunking for a Synology NAS device using HP Switching.

1. First off get your MAC Addresses of your Synology NAS interfaces you want to configure, these can be found in the DSM web login under Control Panel > Info Center > Network

2015-03-02_11-42-38 Continue reading Setting up LACP on Synology NAS and HP Switches →

SpongeBob Reading Official Rules Advanced Edition

More Blogs and sites I’ve been reading and sharing

General, Uncategorized, , ,

My Firefox tabs have filled up again, some of these tabs have been open since the start of 2014!!!

So time to share!!!

First off, proud to announce that Cisco asked me to produce a blog post, and decided it was good enough to release into the wild on their site!!!

Get Certified, or get left behind!!!!

PowerShell and Scripting

http://explainshell.com/ – write down a command-line to see the help text that matches each argument

scriptcop.start-automating.com – ScriptCop is a tool to help make sure your scripts follow the rules. ScriptCop performs static analysis on your PowerShell, and provides tools for automating testing with PowerShell. Continue reading More Blogs and sites I’ve been reading and sharing →

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Invited to speak at North West England VMUG – 25th February 2015

General, VMware, , ,

Great news, I’ve been invited to speak at the North West VMUG on the 25th February. And there is a raffle for a iPad Air 2 and nVidia K2 Graphics card. (That’s the selling points of why to come covered).

The VMUGs are great, you usually get some free training, a couple of vendors taking about their products, with less of a sales slant. And someone from the community taking about their real experiences. For the North West VMUG, Nathan and Steve both put a lot of effort into the agenda ensuring a day that will cater to most, and ensure there is always something you can take away.

This means they put a heavy focus on the people who turn up, and what they want. Which personally, when I attend, is not the usual sales talk about a product. Take the last event for example, Trend where there talking about how great their product is and the fact it beats everyone else. However there was an opportunity to really grill the speaker, who was a techie just like me. I was able to get down to the nitty gritty about trend’s worldwide connected features to detect and block threats in near real-time. The speaker also detailed about one of their biggest customers, and the challenges faced, and how by implementing trend helped them. Rather than the usual, this product is used by 40% of Fortune 500 companies.

Where do I fit in?

shutterstock_presentation

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